


Self Care is Important

by Place2b



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Bubble 2.0, Colorado Avalanche, Gen, M/M, Philadelphia Flyers, Reluctant Friendship, Self Care, no mention of COVID, talking about crushes, tall vampire boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:27:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29028702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Place2b/pseuds/Place2b
Summary: Ryan Graves was bored one day and somehow managed to fall down a rabbit hole of self care productsHe lets his teammate Cale know about it but somehow he has Nolan Patrick in his room and is braiding his hair
Relationships: Carter Hart/Cale Makar, Mark Barberio/Ryan Graves, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Ryan Graves & Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	Self Care is Important

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys I've been wanting to write something like this for awhile now!  
> Based off of that one tumblr post:  
> https://kmarli.tumblr.com/post/636422247427489792/ok-so-i-dont-go-here-either-of-heres-tbh-but
> 
> Thank you to my beta Dori!!
> 
> I hope ya'll like it!

Ryan was bored out of his mind. They didn't have a game for a few days which was a good change of pace on paper, but in reality there was not a lot of stuff to do. He did some virtual golfing with a few of the guys but that didn't keep his attention too long. He wasn't much of a gamer so he didn't have an Xbox to kill time. He could go on his laptop but he didn't know where to start.

After wandering the hallways for a bit he eventually decided to head back to his room and pull up YouTube. He still didn't know what to watch so he went to the trending page where he saw a video with the thumbnail of a guy reacting to random people cutting their hair. He had nothing else to do so he clicked on it.

The guy in the video was very excitable and Ryan kind of vibed with it, it wasn't his usual thing to watch but he was warming up to it. He watched till the end, impressed that these girls in the video were so brave to just take scissors or random dye to their hair.

As he was watching, he realized just how far down the rabbit hole he’d gone. He had gone from watching people cutting their own hair to watching people talking about what is best for dry skin and what is needed to get his hair to be as shiny as the moon. He was so invested in these videos that he didn't even realize how late it had gotten.

He managed to turn off his laptop and head into the bathroom to start getting ready for bed. As he looked at himself in the mirror he couldn't help but to bring a hand up to his face. He dragged his fingers across his cheeks and winced at the dryness of them. He also leaned in closer and could see the areas of his face where his acne scars were and where some new pimples were getting ready to appear around his hairline where his helmet sat.

He liked to think that he was a pretty attractive guy, hell he looked at the Avs twitter all the time. But looking in the mirror now he could tell that he could look better. His hair could be shinier, his skin could be smoother, even his nails could look better.

He couldn't stop thinking about it the next morning at practice, it was very distracting to constantly be thinking of ways to keep his hair out of his face without causing breakage, or how to make sure his nails wouldn't break when playing. He must've been obvious that his mind was elsewhere, because Cale started to give him weird looks.

Ryan just shrugged him off, like Cale can judge him, Cale has the worst skin Ryan has seen, with his perpetually red cheeks and dry t-zone. After practice Ryan found himself on his laptop again, going down the same rabbit hole as before. This time however he had another tab opened to a skincare website and browsing their items. He started placing some items into his cart as the videos continued. He listened to the people telling him the best products for his face, how to push his cuticles back in order to make his nails look good. When he was done filling his cart he went to check out but froze for a second. He didn't actually know if he could order this stuff and get it shipped to the hotel without anyone noticing. He sent a quick text to Gabe to confirm he was allowed to order packages and clicked order.

It took a few days but he finally got everything delivered to the hotel, everything was packaged discreetly so it was easy to get the boxes up to his room without being stopped. He opened the box and pulled out everything.

He headed into the bathroom with his products and got to work. He warmed up the water in the sink and used a damp towel to wet his face, he applied the new face wash and rinsed it off. He then grabbed a sheet mask and carefully spread it across his face, he grabbed the jade roller and rolled it across the mask to smooth it out. He then wet his hair, careful not to dislodge the mask. After his hair was wet he grabbed the fancy hair mask that one of the bloggers recommended and spread it evenly throughout his head. When he was satisfied with the end result he set a timer for 20 minutes on his phone and went to lounge on his bed.

He sat there watching some more videos when his phone finally began to ring. He went back into the bathroom to remove the mask, his skin did look somewhat better in his head, but not as good as it could look. 

Ryan then turned to the shower to rinse out the mask and try out the body scrub. 

After the shower he applied the fancy face lotion he bought and got ready for bed. As he laid down on his sheets he reached a hand up to his face and was stunned at the softness of it, it was a hard contrast to how it normally felt.

He went with the same routine for a few more weeks before he started to notice results. But while he knew that his face and hair had begun to soften up he didn't realize how observant some of his teammates were.

“Why do you keep touching your face?” Ryan heard from somewhere to his right. He dropped the hand which was currently touching his cheek. He turned and saw that it was Cale. 

Cale was watching him with a curious look. Ryan didn't really want to admit to his new hobby, he didn't want to deal with the chirps that were bound to come out of it.

“Um.. what do you mean?” he replied. He was trying to get the conversation somewhere else in order to save face.

“Like, I think you’ve touched the same part of your cheek about thirty times since we’ve been here”

Ryan looked around the room, no one seemed to be paying them any attention so he leaned down to whisper in Cale's ear, “Look I’ll tell you but you have to keep it a secret okay?”

Cale startled a little but nodded his head quickly.

“Okay, meet me in my room after team dinner, and don't tell anyone.”

“Yeah, yeah okay, sure,” was his response. It looked like he was going to say more but they were called on to the ice. Ryan let out a quick breath, glad that the conversation was over. But thinking about it a bit did make it seem like he was doing something sketchy.

Later that night Ryan heard a knock on his door, he opened it up to reveal Cale, his eyes were blown wide and his face seemed to lose it's redness that he was used to seeing. Cale quickly pushed inside. Ryan watched as Cale started to survey his room, he pulled open his drawers and peeked inside his closet.

“Um Cale? Everything alright buddy?” Ryan asked as Cale started to sort through his suitcase.

Cale stopped suddenly, he walked up to him and grabbed his hands, “Gravy I care about you, you can tell me anything, we will get through this together I promise.”

Ryan suddenly burst into laughter, “Bud what is happening?”

“I… I'm not sure how to go about this but if there's drugs in here I’ll help you get rid of it without Gabe or EJ knowing.”

“Cale, bud, I promise you there are no drugs in here.”

“Then why have you been acting so weird, like I looked it up and excessive face touching can be a sign of drug use, EJ agreed too.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow, “You talked to Ej about me using drugs?”

Cale shied away, turning redder by the second, “I didn't say you specifically… I just said hypothetically if a friend was using drugs what to do, and he just laughed and walked away.”

“Right, well, we’ll come back to that. But I can promise you I’m not on drugs.” Cale just nodded and let Ryan lead him to the bathroom where his supplies were.

He spent the next hour explaining and demonstrating all his new self care items and telling Cale the benefits of each product. By the end of everything they were lying down on Ryan's bed side by side, each had a peel-off face mask on.

Cale broke the silence with a quiet, “I'm sorry I thought you were doing something illegal.”

Ryan let out a small laugh, “As long as Erik doesn't say anything to me, I forgive you.'' Ryan raised his fist up towards Cale as a sign of peace. Cale bumped his fist back in acknowledgement. They let the silence wash over them again, waiting for the timer to go off.

It had been a few weeks since he told Cale about his new hobby and it felt pretty good to let someone else into his life. It was getting pretty boring recently being stuck inside and all that. But one can't complain when their team is winning more than they're losing. The Avs made it past the first round and now some teams from the other division were going to be moving into the same hotel. it's going to be nice seeing some new faces, it was getting a bit stale.

One thing that Ryan noticed with the arrival of the other teams was that he couldn’t find Cale as often as he used to. They had established a weekly spa day and he had skipped the last two. He managed to track him down in the lounge where he appeared to have two plates of food, which was weird. He pulled out a chair and sat down. Cale had yet to look up from his phone so he slapped his hand on the table a few times. That seemed to do the trick because he startled up and his face began to turn red once again. 

“Hey bud, haven't seen you in a while, where’ve you been?” 

Cale started tapping on his phone a bit, “Just around… hanging out, not seeing anyone from a different team that's for sure.” he said as his face turned even redder.

Ryan just nodded slowly, “Alright, anyways, are you coming up tonight or nah? Just so I know what to set up.”

“Um I don't think I can tonight but, um, maybe next week?’

“Alright, there's no pressure, just knock if you want to hang.”

Cale was about to say something else when another chair was pulled out and a person sat down.

Ryan turned to see the goalie for the flyers sitting down with another plate of food.

“Sorry am I interrupting something?” He said, he pulled one of the empty plates towards him and started to shove some of the food onto it before pushing it back towards Cale.

“They were out of sausage so I just got you more potatoes.”

Ryan doesn’t think he’s ever seen Cale's face as red as it is now. “Yeah, um, it's fine.” was all Cale said before shoveling said potatoes into his mouth.

Carter just shook his head before turning towards Ryan. “Hey Cale was telling me about your thing and I have a friend who needs a self care day, could he join you tonight?”

Ryan glanced at Cale who refused to look away from his quickly emptying plate, he had to look up eventually though, turning back to goalie, “Yeah, I mean if he wants to.”

Carter Just nodded his head before scooting his chair closer to Cale, Cale once again startled a bit before settling down. Carter leaned his head down to whisper something to him. Ryan just raised his eyebrows before pushing away from the table and walking out. It looked like the two needed some alone time and who was he to take it away from them?

A bit later that day, after practice and some video stuff for the Avs twitter team, Ryan finally got around to setting everything up. He wasn’t told who was coming up to his room, so he set everything out just in case. He organized the face masks, lotion, diffuser, candles, hair masks, moisturizers, nail polish, and the rest.

He was turning on his fancy spa music when he heard a hesitant knock on the door. He opened the door to none other than Nolan Patrick. He didn't know who to expect but the flyers center was not it. 

He let Nolan into the room, waiting for him to look around, taking in the calming scene that Ryan set. 

“So... hey, I’m Ryan you can call me Gravy if you want, I don’t know how much you were told, but we can start anywhere you feel comfortable.”

Nolan continued to look around the room a bit before mumbling out a soft, “I don't know where to start.”

Ryan understood, he didn't know where to start at first either, but he gained some knowledge over these past weeks. “I have a spare robe you can change into, you don't have to get fully naked, whatever comfortable. Also what scents do you like? For the diffuser?”

“I can’t really do strong scents since, the whole migraine thing ya know?” he said while grabbing the robe.

“Right of course, go get changed and I’ll finish setting up.” Nolan nodded and headed into the bathroom to change.

Ryan knocked on the door after a moment and Nolan let him in. He already looked less on edge than he did when he first walked into the room.

He had Nolan sit by the tub with his head leaned back, he took the showerhead and carefully wet his hair before doing the same to himself. They talked a little about what they were doing and how to take care of their hair. Ryan carefully applied the hair mask, making sure that Nolan was following along. 

They headed back into the main room where Ryan set a timer for the masks. They sat down on the floor where Ryan spread out some pillows and an extra comforter so they could be comfy on the ground.

Once they were settled Ryan pulled his basket of nail polish and lotion towards them and grabbed one of Nolan's hands.

“So how’d Carter convince you to do this?” he asked as he started to massage lotion into the dry spots on Nolan's hands.

“It was actually TK who convinced me.” was his response.

Ryan was going to have to have a talk with Cale about who he could tell about this stuff, it was only a matter of time before it got back to the team. “TK?” he knew who Nolan was talking about but he wanted to be sure.

Nolan nodded as Ryan settled his hand into the warm water he set out in order to soften up his cuticles. “Yeah, um, Travis Konecny? He saw Hartsy’s convo with Cale on his phone and thought it would chill me out.” 

Ryan picked up the other hand and began to rub on more lotion, “So I’m guessing you didn't agree right away?” he asked.

“Not really, it took TK and Hartsy a lot of convincing to finally get me up here.” He started to sort through some of the nail polish before settling on a faint milky pink color. He handed the color to Ryan before continuing, “When I told TK I was coming up here he wanted to join but I was embarrassed, so I told him he couldn't come.”

Ryan grabbed his cuticle and nail clippers before switching hands, placing the other into the water. “He could’ve come, I like the company,” Ryan said.

Nolan just shook his head, his face heating up a little bit. “I… Um… I wanted to do this without him, to see what he thinks about me after.”

Ryan was starting to catch on a bit now, “Well I can tell you that these boys won’t notice right away.” He shook up the nail polish a bit before starting to apply it to his nails. “Travis will,” Nolan mumbled, “He notices almost everything about me.” Ryan looked up to see a small smile on Nolan's face. To his delight, it looked like Nolan was finally starting to fully relax.

“So you wanted to impress Travis?” he asked 

Nolan nodded his head, his blush darkening, “Like you haven’t done something to impress a boy… or girl or whatever.”

It was Ryan's turn to blush this time, “I can agree that I've done some weird stuff to impress a boy.” 

That seemed to get Nolan's attention, Ryan laughed a bit when he sat up straighter, “tell me, I told you about my dumb boy tell me about yours!”

Ryan shook his head and grabbed Nolan's other hand in order to paint it, “We met my first year as an Av and I wanted to impress him but I kept being sent up and down so I never really got the chance.” Nolan pulled his hands away to look at the polish before sitting up on his knees, Ryan was sure that if they had a desk , his head would be in his hands like a gossiping girl. 

“We never really talked much but we got roped into a media thing together and he said his favorite movie was Star Wars, and I, wanting to talk more, lied and said that I’ve never watched them.”

“You didn’t!” Nolan exclaimed.

Ryan just laughed and nodded his head, “I did, but it worked, he invited me over afterwards to watch it.”

Nolan interrupted him, “and??!!! What happened?” 

“We watched it at his house, cuddled a bit, and after that we started to get closer, we became good friends ya know?” This was the part where he started to falter, he wanted to keep going but it was still a sore part to him.

He stood up suddenly, grabbing some of the face masks that he set out, “Which one do you want?”

Nolan shook his head, “Doesn’t matter,” he looked concerned, “But what happened after that? Did it work out?”

He started to apply the mask to Nolan's face. Taking a deep breath he continued. “Before last season, before we went into the first bubble, we kissed.”

Nolan gasped as Ryan continued, “But after that he pulled away and told me ‘I wanted to do that before I left.’” 

“What does that mean?” Nolan grabbed the packet away from Ryan and started to apply the mask to Ryan's face.

Ryan let out a shaky laugh, “It turns out that he wasn’t going to be coming to the bubble, he signed for a team in Switzerland and he was going to play there for the rest of the season.”

Nolan's hand froze in shock, waiting for Ryan to continue.

“And he still hasn’t come back, and he hasn’t talked to me since he left.” Ryan looked down at his hands. He never really told anyone about Mark, it felt good to get it out, but it was still a sore subject for him.

Nolan set the mask packet down before pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry Ryan. For what it’s worth, I just met you and if I wasn't fully in love with a teammate I’d definitely fall for you.”

Ryan let out a laugh and responded, “Thanks man, anyway it's time to rinse the hair masks out, be careful of your nails.”

They got up and went back into the bathroom to rinse out the stuff. Ryan motioned to Nolan to sit down on the toilet where he grabbed a hairbrush and started to brush out the knots. He explained how to properly brush his hair, starting from the bottom and working upwards. After that he grabbed a comb and started on the braid. He wasn't the best braider, but it was much easier to braid on another person's hair than his own.

Once they were done in the bathroom, they found themselves lying down side by side on the bed, very similar to how he and Cale started off.

“Hey Ryan?” he heard from his right. He hummed in acknowledgement.

“Can we do this again sometime? Like even next season?”

“Of course we can.” he responded. He heard a soft yawn before he relaxed fully into the bed.

They both must’ve dozed off because he startled awake to his timer going off for their face masks.

After drying their faces and putting on moisturizer, he walked Nolan to the door. Nolan pulled him into a hug before walking out.

Ryan stood in the doorway for a few seconds before settling back into his bed and falling back to sleep, where he dreamed of another spa day only with a different man, one with a loud laugh and nice facial hair. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Pls leave a kudos or a comment!!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @ryangravytrain for more hockey stuff!


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